The 401(k) plan provides that death benefitd commence in the calendar year following the calendar year of the participant's death and is paid in a lump sum unless the beneficiary elects another form of benefit under the plan. The plan permits annuities and MRD installments.

The participant died in 2002 before his required beginning date. The particiapnt would have turned 70-1/2 in 2015. The spouse designated beneficiary made no election in 2003 and still has an account balance in the plan. Clearly the plan has an operational defect since no benefit payment begain by 12/31/2006.

To the extent she did not make an election as to how she wanted the death benefit to be paid, I assume that the plan's default form of death benefit prevails - the lump sum. Is the entire lump sum eligible to be directly rolled over to an IRA or other eligible retirement plan? Or does the plan need to pay her beneficairy MRD for 2003 - 2007 first?

Is this code only used for Puerto Rican plans? Reading the 5500 Preparer's Manual, this code is reported only when there is no election made under ERISA Section 1022(i)(2), which based on my reading only applies to Puerto Rican pension plans. Is this right?

When would anyone file correctly and use code 3C?

Thanks.

what fees are permissibly charged to a (self-insured) health plan and where is it codified (i must not be phrasing it correctly because i can't find it in the DOL regs). help!

I prepared a court order which was signed by the participant (P) and the alternate payee (AP), and submitted to the plan administrator (PA). To date I have received no notification of the PA's approval of the document as a QDRO. I learned from AP that funds for AP had been set up in an account for AP, but there was a hold placed on the account. We later learned that P disagreed with the interpretation of the DRO and the amount awarded to AP (i.e., P argued to AP that AP should not get interest -- haven't we all heard that one in an up market -- and the P should not have the extra-marital loan against P's share). Meanwhile, nobody at the TPA or the Plan is talking to me (AP's attorney) or to AP. Finally, funds were released because P called to the Plan Administrator and asked that the hold be lifted.

let's see. . .if the order was "qulaified," why have we (AP and her attorney) not been notified? Why did the plan permit the P to control the release of funds to AP? Isn't that a breach of the Plan's fiduciary duty to the AP? Doesn't the plan have a responsibility to the AP to enforce the order or have P explore proper legal channels? shouldn't AP and AP's attorney have access to the account information to verify that the award corresponded to the terms of the DRO?

Any comments?

We have a home builder that is starting a new plan. Participant D owns 50% of Company A and Participant J owns the other 50% of Company A. Participant D also owns 100% of Company B along with his wife. Company B is a training center for a real estate group. Company B provides office space, office equipment and administrative help to Company A, for which they pay Company B a monthly fee. Company B employees do not sell homes for or receive wages from Company A. I have gone through Who's the Employer and it is not a controlled group and I don't believe it is ASG but wanted some input from others as I don't have much experience with this subject.

Say we have a combined defined benefit/profit sharing/401k plan.

The non discrimination tests are to be performed on the accrued to date basis.

Regarding the minimum gateway,is the highest allocation for the HCEs based on the allocation under the accrued to date method or is that always based on the annual (current year) method?

For example for a first year DB plan a 5% owner HCE (earning 100k) can have a DB benefit of $0 at the beginning of the year and an accrued benefit of $10,000 at the end of the year. And if he has 5 years of credited service at the end of the year his annual accrual is 10%, but his accrued to date accrual is 2% (10,000/5 divided by 100k) and thus the equivalent allocation differs greatly.

I have a 1 participant/owner 412i plan.

The uncertainties in such a plan are:

projected cash values of life insurance policies, and

distribution option chosen (eg. insurance provided annuity, distribution of policy, lump sum)

Of course we can't exceed 415 and we don't want a surplus upon distribution.

Plan is funded 50% with annuity contract and 50% with life insurance contract to meet incidental death benefit requirement.

Suggested plan document techniques (from a conceptual standpoint not from an exact language standpoint) include:

Accrued benefit be equal to the benefit provided by the accumulated values (i.e. cash value and accumulated value of the two policies) at determination date.

Of course the benefit differs based on the plan distribution.

Normal retirement benefit equal to the benefit provided by the accumulated values at normal retirement.

Death benefit equal to the life insurance proceeds plus the accumulated value of the annuity contract.

Basically the intent of the above concepts it to ensure that the plan document mirrors how the plan operates.

Curious if there are any other viewpoints out there.

Guy owns an LLC with NO employees. He filed his LLC 2006 1065/K-1's by their original due date of 4/15/07. There was no deduction for employer contributions reported on the K-1's. He filed an extension, however, for his 1040 (which returm he has not yet filed)

The question is, is it too late to make a SEP contribution for 2006 (plan is already in place). The argument in favor, of course, is that he is only taking the deduction on his 1040 since there are no employees.

Outside directors defer fees into company's (account balance) NCDC plan. The deferred amounts are subject to SECA but my question is when is SECA due? Upon deferral or upon distribution? And is it in Notice 2005-1 or final 409A regs?

thanks for your help!

My company just recently had a visit from a vendor who reported that approximately 20% of covered dependents on health insurance are not valid dependents. At an average of $1500 claims payout per dependent per year, even if their estimate is very high could result in some serious savings. We have decided that we will probably go forward with dependent verification. Our first thought of course is birth certificates and marriage licenses. Someone mentioned page one of the tax return, but then again that has personal financial information on it as well. Not to mention, it could be altered as well. Anyone out there do dependent verification, or have any further ideas of implementing this? Thanks for any info!

Ellymae

I have just begun to save for retirement. I am going to be 26 next month so from what I have read I should be investing agressively now, is this thinking acurate? Fidelity basically asked me 5 questions to determine what fund was right for me and I responded that my risk tolerance was high, and that I could take some big swings.

I just recently decided that I should start a roth IRA. My companys 401(k) is through Fidelity so naturally I decided to turn to them. The IRA that I have already set up invests in FDRXX. A quick google search provided me with a link to their prospectus:

http://www.fasttrack.net/ProspectusPageDis...?Sym=FDRXX&

Now to me it might as well be in Japanese, however a few things stuck out; such as the returns over the last 10 years. The average return is 3.7% a year. Now that doesn't sound too hot to me. Is this fund one that I should be investing in at this time? Any quick thoughts you have on Fidelity IRA's as well as this specific fund would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Is it legal for a school to deny waiver of days of absence because the diagnosis of the student/patient was not written on the slip?

I need to know where to look at the actual hipaa rule concerning this.

any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you in advance.

Is it legal for a school to deny waiver of days of absence because the diagnosis of the student/patient was not written on the slip?

I need to know where to look at the actual hipaa rule concerning this.

any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you in advance.

Is it legal for a school to deny waiver of days of absence because the diagnosis of the student/patient was not written on the slip?

I need to know where to look at the actual hipaa rule concerning this.

any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you in advance.

This is really an investment question, and I did post it under Investment Issues. I thought I would put it here too, in case anyone here does have experience with this stuff:

This may seem simple, but this is not my area of expertise:

Say that in a one-person DB plan, all the assets are in a GIC. For simplicity's sake, let's say it is worth $400,000 including a surrender charge of $20,000. The plan terminates, and the owner's 415 limit is higher than $400,000. Say also that his PVAB before any amendments is $350,000, so we don't have any issues about cutbacks, waivers, etc.

Scenario 1: The owner elects a rollover to his IRA, and the GIC is retitled in the name of his IRA.

Scenario 2: The owner cashes out the GIC while it is still in the DB plan, and then rolls the proceeds into his own IRA.

Scenario 3: While the GIC is in the DB plan, the owner makes a partial withdrawal, say of $100,000, and then rolls everything, cash and remaining part of the GIC, into his IRA. The remaining part of the GIC is retitled in the name of the IRA.

Putting aside for a moment whether any of these scenarios makes more sense that the others, all I want to know is what is the resulting value of the IRA (assume it is new) in each case. (I believe I know the answeres to the first two; not sure about 3.) Or does it depend on the insurance co and the contract?

Are 403(b) plan investments subject to risk of creditors claiming the assets - unlike 401(k) plans.

This may seem simple, but this is not my area of expertise:

Say that in a one-person DB plan, all the assets are in a GIC. For simplicity's sake, let's say it is worth $400,000 including a surrender charge of $20,000. The plan terminates, and the owner's 415 limit is higher than $400,000. Say also that his PVAB before any amendments is $350,000, so we don't have any issues about cutbacks, waivers, etc.

Scenario 1: The owner elects a rollover to his IRA, and the GIC is retitled in the name of his IRA.

Scenario 2: The owner cashes out the GIC while it is still in the DB plan, and then rolls the proceeds into his own IRA.

Scenario 3: While the GIC is in the DB plan, the owner makes a partial withdrawal, say of $100,000, and then rolls everything, cash and remaining part of the GIC, into his IRA. The remaining part of the GIC is retitled in the name of the IRA.

Putting aside for a moment whether any of these scenarios makes more sense that the others, all I want to know is what is the resulting value of the IRA (assume it is new) in each case. (I believe I know the answeres to the first two; not sure about 3.) Or does it depend on the insurance co and the contract?

Is there any way around having to make a top heavy contribution to an HCE that also happens to be a very, very well paid non-key employee? Can they somehow elect out of that contribution?

A school has salary contracts for all employees. The contract states the annual salary the employee will recieve. Employer has a Section 125 Plan. Employer tells employees if they want to participate in the Section 125 plan, the salary stipulated in the contract will be reduced by the elected amount, and whatever remains is their regular compensation paid out over the course of 12-months. The elected amount is essentially taken before the wages are a function of pay. This looks like an employer contribution to me, which I don't think is a problem, but why am I uncomfortable with the set up?

How does a client determine the top 20% of all ee's for HCE. Client has 9 employees. One is clearly the highest paid, and the next six all earn exactly the same salary, which is over 100,000 from 2006. Where do they break for determining the top 20%? Would it be 2 or are all the 6 ee's with the same salary included? Thanks.